That’s a lot to digest, but I do feel that we (men) are losing identity and individuality these days.
Join us. Unleash the hairy gams. There’s a whole world of shorts to explore.
It’s the same in music, television, film, literature, etc. Since the new millennium, we have seen an explosion of possibilities. Hell, men can wear women’s clothes, makeup, etc. but we can also wear jeans and a white t and a leather jacket. And I don’t mean just to the disco - we can literally wear dresses to the office, to dinner with the boss, etc. or we can wear jeans and a white t with our tats hanging out… or a vintage suit or a designer suit or shorts and a bow tie or whatever the hell.
I agree. Identity, however, is formed through choices and making a choice requires options which are no longer available to men because clothes and attitude toward clothes had degraded to the point of utter oblivion and infantilization.
Hell, take us here, for instance. What are we talking about here, on this forum? Jeans. Ignoring sweatpants, jeans are the most basic, primitive style of trousers available and these days, person wearing a "better" looking jeans is considered to have dressed-up!
Then there's the whole notion of how "real" men should only care about being comfortable & only dress up for the occasion. This implies that only on a special occasion should a man not be dressed like shit which in turn implies that wearing nice clothes on a daily basis is inappropriate.
And what do we get? Hordes of men shuffling around wearing the same thing their parents bought for them when they were children, except in a larger size. Oh, and sometimes with a big, fat logo that implies that the wearer has a disposable income of their own.
Women have it worse but that's another topic altogether.
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I agree. Identity, however, is formed through choices and making a choice requires options which are no longer available to men because clothes and attitude toward clothes had degraded to the point of utter oblivion and infantilization.
Hell, take us here, for instance. What are we talking about here, on this forum? Jeans. Ignoring sweatpants, jeans are the most basic, primitive style of trousers available and these days, person wearing a "better" looking jeans is considered to have dressed-up!
Then there's the whole notion of how "real" men should only care about being comfortable & only dress up for the occasion. This implies that only on a special occasion should a man not be dressed like shit which in turn implies that wearing nice clothes on a daily basis is inappropriate.
And what do we get? Hordes of men shuffling around wearing the same thing their parents bought for them when they were children, except in a larger size. Oh, and sometimes with a big, fat logo that implies that the wearer has a disposable income of their own.
Women have it worse but that's another topic altogether.
But will there still be a world to return to, though?
You're correct that media has been bombarding us with revelations how men can wear anything they desire, now more than ever although why is that? What has changed?
Fashion industry has been playing ping-pong with gender roles for a long time now. That's nothing new. What has changed, however, is the ever growing availability of clothes in general and isn't it curious, convenient even, how before it could be mass produced to such an extent, these "couture pieces" belonged only on a runway & what little exposure they had received has been ridiculed but now that companies like Zara simplified and devolved their third-world country slave-shop production to such an extent that with near-zero cost, they can pump it out in infinite quantities, suddenly we are all free & encouraged to dress how we want.
Sure, we can wear whatever we want... As long as we don't want to wear quality clothes. That's a big no. Huge no!
Take T-shirts. What's the most you would pay for a T-shirt?
I used to think how paying $150 for a Real McCoy T-shirt is insane but... Isn't it crazier that average price for a T-shirt is $15? $15!!!
That's sickening. I do not want to wear a T-shirt that costs $15. The process of making a single T-shirt expands over several countries, sometimes continents and requires several different types of manual labor by up to ten people.
Do you know that Zara sales assistant in Europe has a higher monthly income than all of the ten people involved in the physical production of said T-shirt, combined?
Either way, I don't like neither shorts nor T-shirts. Either remove the sleeves altogether or leave them be.
Techies like Steve Jobs wore a t-shirt/denim uniform like forever. Other C-suite types of course not, until recently.Agree. Covid period kinda accelerated this even faster.
I was at an executive meeting few weeks ago with C suite.
CEO rolls into meeting with a tshirt and an unbuttoned denim shirt, denim jeans and sneakers
CFO - short sleeve shirt, some pants and sneakers
VP - Short sleeve shirt, denim jeans and leather loafers.
pretty much every one in that meeting didn't really care.
meanwhile i wore a nice Dress Shirt, Pants, black belt, alden shoes. nothing fancy, just business casual. even that i felt out of place. i used to wear a blazer in the past to be slightly formal, got rid of that one as I felt it is a bit distracting.
It doesn't take a lot of effort to dress in business casual or formal, and doesn't have to be uncomfortable. Beats me, why people don't care about themselves anymore.
Who told you they don't care? Maybe they do anyway?CEO rolls into meeting with a tshirt and an unbuttoned denim shirt, denim jeans and sneakers
CFO - short sleeve shirt, some pants and sneakers
VP - Short sleeve shirt, denim jeans and leather loafers.
pretty much every one in that meeting didn't really care.
Who told you they don't care? Maybe they do anyway?
I'm also in enough meetings and wear exactly what I wear in my photos. It may look like I don't care, but I actually think carefully about what I do and don't want to wear.
Fortunately, I can wear what I want and it's accepted, even if others are there in blazers.
Thanks for the clarification.i should've explicitly mentioned, there is an office dress code about wearing business formals from Mon-Thursday that gets published every year.
View attachment 638522
Reminds me of a pair of cargo pants that I used to wear like that (tied below the kness).
So kind of a semi-shorts look that I actually like much better than actual shorts.
Thoughts?
You see options I see noise and garbage.After reading this, I’m honestly not sure what your position is. You seem to just be against things (shorts, t-shirts, Zara…) but I can’t tell what you are for. Your responses to this thread read like a list of grievances, but I don’t get why you feel aggrieved.
Fashion today is WAY more democratic than it ever was before and people are far freer to explore their own sense of style than they ever were before. And far more people - especially young people - are doing just that than ever before.
The fact that society is free enough today to see a grown man wearing running shorts, a leather jacket and neon sneakers simply because that’s what he wants to wear… I personally think that’s pretty damn free.
Is that much freedom a good thing? I don’t know. But if we value the freedom of self-expression, then this is certainly the moment in all of known history when it is at its greatest extent.
You see options I see noise and garbage.
You see options I see noise and garbage.
^^
A very cool journey.
The difference is that you are a person who has taste and you want to express yourself genuinely through the clothes that you wear. All the outfits are intentional and purposeful.I agree, that is the difference between us.
But I’m not convinced that all this personal aesthetics is somehow superior to traditional aesthetics or an authority/anti-authority aesthetic like we saw between disco and punk in the late 70s.
I was a digital nomad from 2009 to 2021 and developed my own aesthetic. I definitely enjoyed it and got a lot of compliments (and some complaints). But when I returned to the US and started back to work as a trucker, I put my personal clothes away and started wearing more traditional trucker’s attire: boots, denim trousers and jacket, etc.
What I learned was that I loved the trucker’s wardrobe even more than the wardrobe I had developed on my own. Theory would have it that I would feel more self-actualized and satisfied in an aesthetic that was completely personal - but that simply wasn’t the case. I actually prefer my trucker’s aesthetic, particularly now that I’ve added leather jackets.
So I’m not convinced that all this personal freedom we experience today is as satisfying as folks seem to think it is - but I do believe that everyone has the right to explore that for themselves.
My point is that today we have the choice, and I believe that’s a good thing.
Here’s an example of my old, completely personal aesthetic:
View attachment 638737
And here are examples of my new, more traditional aesthetic:
View attachment 638738
And here I am a few months ago in my first high end leather:
View attachment 638739
I’m not arguing the aesthetic merits, I’m just saying that I feel more comfortable in the last two than I did in the first one, even though the first one was completely my own creation. But I wouldn’t have realized that if I had not gone through the process.
First photo is awesome .I agree, that is the difference between us.
But I’m not convinced that all this personal aesthetics is somehow superior to traditional aesthetics or an authority/anti-authority aesthetic like we saw between disco and punk in the late 70s.
I was a digital nomad from 2009 to 2021 and developed my own aesthetic. I definitely enjoyed it and got a lot of compliments (and some complaints). But when I returned to the US and started back to work as a trucker, I put my personal clothes away and started wearing more traditional trucker’s attire: boots, denim trousers and jacket, etc.
What I learned was that I loved the trucker’s wardrobe even more than the wardrobe I had developed on my own. Theory would have it that I would feel more self-actualized and satisfied in an aesthetic that was completely personal - but that simply wasn’t the case. I actually prefer my trucker’s aesthetic, particularly now that I’ve added leather jackets.
So I’m not convinced that all this personal freedom we experience today is as satisfying as folks seem to think it is - but I do believe that everyone has the right to explore that for themselves.
My point is that today we have the choice, and I believe that’s a good thing.
Here’s an example of my old, completely personal aesthetic:
View attachment 638737
And here are examples of my new, more traditional aesthetic:
View attachment 638738
And here I am a few months ago in my first high end leather:
View attachment 638739
I’m not arguing the aesthetic merits, I’m just saying that I feel more comfortable in the last two than I did in the first one, even though the first one was completely my own creation. But I wouldn’t have realized that if I had not gone through the process.